'Mummenschanz' brings world of imagination to Allentown's Symphony Hall

Playfulness and simplicity make a Mummenschanz performance resonate with all audiences.

One of Floriana Frassetto's favorite parts of a Mummenschanz performance is at intermission.

It is then that the co-founder of the 45-year-old Swiss mask troupe goes into the audience wearing a box on her head and carrying a roll of tape. After using the tape to make a picture of a face on the box, she invites people in the audience to create a face for her on the box.

"It's so much fun," Frassetto says. "You never know what they are going to do."

Frassetto says it is the playfulness and simplicity that makes a Mummenschanz performance resonate no matter where it is performed.

"There are no words and no music," she says. "We invented this world of imagination that is very special, In all these countries in which we have traveled it is about the child in us. Around the world it is the same playful child that wants to reach out for a balloon. That's beautiful."

Mummenschanz, which last performed in the Lehigh Valley a decade ago in Kuztown, will present a show featuring the best of its 45 years on Saturday at Miller Symphony Hall in Allentown. They'll bring out everything from their giant green mouth with its red stuck-out tongue to a multi-tentacled octopus. The faces and creatures take on lives of their own with the help of lighting. The performers, who wear all black, disappear into their creations.

Frassetto, who was born in Norfolk and raised in Italy, ended up in Switzerland where she met Bernie Schürch and Andres Bossard in 1971.

"I met these two crazy people and together we created Mummenschanz," Frassetto says.

The following year, the trio debuted their troupe, which performed mask-and-prop-style theater without words or music. The name Mummenschanz is German for "mummery," or a play involving mime artists.

Frassetto says they tried working with music but found that it bound them to the rhythm.

"Mummenschanz is very much based on improvs.We are shaping our timing and rhythm to our audience. We came from the 1960s and wanted to have freedom. When we experimented with musicians, it slowed the pace."

She says that freedom is also why Mummenschanz does not use words.

"Every language has a rhythm," she says. "I feel we express enough in our silence through what we do."

Mummenschanz had its first tour of the United States in 1973 and then had a three-year run on Broadway 1977-1980 and returned to Broadway with "The New Show" in 1986. Mummenschanz has toured in 60 countries on five continents.

Mummenschanz also has been featured on TV's "The Muppet Show" and "Sesame Street."

"We are on another dimension as puppeteers," she says.

Frassetto says the current show features pieces from the 1970s and 1980s including the face made of slinky parts and people with masks made of toilet paper rolls as well as the classic giant green mouth.

"The green mouth that sticks out its tongue and wants to eat this little star is one of our oldest pieces," Frassetto says. "Once we did it for a school and a little girl drew a picture and sent it to me and said the mouth was sticking out its tongue at the boy who sat next to her. Everyone identifies with the characters. The themes are so simple, they stay playful."

She says a piece that was popular in the 1990s is the "giants," huge inflatable shapes that interact like sumo wrestlers.

A newer piece is one in which the performers manipulate a white sheet that "makes faces to the audience." Other pieces include clay masks and giant white hands.

"We've invented more than 105 numbers and can only do 25," she says. "I think this is our best. It is a very varied mix and it is funny. It is good for age 6 to 106."

The pieces are 3 to 5 minutes long, allowing the audience to "digest what they see," Frassetto says.

Frassetto still helps create the pieces and performs. She will perform at Symphony Hall along with Swiss actors Sara Hermann, Oliver Pfulg and Philipp Egli, who she says were chosen on their improvisation and clowning ability. She says the troupe also builds all their own masks and props.

"It's all about interaction with the audience and playfulness," she says. "We get a lot of input from our colleagues."

Currently she says she is working on a new Mummenschanz show to premiere in August.

"Kathy.lauer@mcall.com

610-778-2235

"Mummenschanz"

• What: The Switzerland movement mask troupe presents its favorite pieces from 45 years of performing, as well as new pieces.